THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In the Italian countryside, two-tailed lizards were considered to be very lucky for anyone who could catch one. Since they were not common, finding one almost certainly ensured the person a good fortune.
Lucky or not, 15-year-old Namitha found one such lizard at her Peroorkada home two weeks ago. And it aroused her genuine curiosity. ``She kept telling us that there was such a creature in the house, but we didn’t take her seriously initially,’’ said her father Lal C.A., who is a lecturer at the Kattakkada Christian College.
A search on the internet revealed that the two-tailed lizard is not a very rare creature. Tail shedding is a common tactic of many lizards, which increases their chance of escape from predators. The attention of the predators goes to the wobbling tail, while the lizard makes its escape.
In this particular case, it seems that either the tail was not shed properly or there was some spelling mistake in the regeneration instruction provided. One other possibility is the first shedding of the tail followed by another partial shedding, with the third tail regenerating out of the second tail. The end result is the curious two-tailed lizard. But how this creature manages its balance is what puzzles zoologists.
However, Lal and his wife Helen are not very definite about the lizard’s hiding place. ``It is somewhere in the house and pops up once in a while’’ said Lal.
trivandrum@epmltd.com